Married men are up to a third less likely to die of the disease, once diagnosed, than those who have never married, according to the Norwegian research.

Women benefit from being married too in terms of cancer survival, but to a lesser extent, concluded the academics in the article, published today (FRI) in the journal BioMed Central Public Health.

The findings mirror others that have shown marriage increases the groom's lifespan more than the bride's.

In this study, Håkon Kravdal from the University of Oslo and Dr Astri Syse from the Cancer Registry of Norway looked at more than 440,000 adults diagnosed with tumours between 1970 and 2007, of whom about half have died of cancer.

They found men who had never married were up to 35 per cent more likely to have died of the disease than those who were married. For women the maximum difference was 23 per cent.

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The authors wrote: "It is possible that married individuals, because they are taken care of by their spouse, are more prone than the unmarried to visit a physician at occurrence of symptoms, thus possibly discovering tumors at an earlier stage."

Unmarried men and women could have generally poorer health, they speculated, as "having a spouse contributes to a healthier lifestyle". They would therefore be less likely to survive cancer when diagnosed.

Interestingly, the authors found the cancer survival gap between people who were married and those who had never wed had increased since 1970.

They postulated that this could be because society at large "may have become less cohesive", leaving those without a loved-one for support more vulnerable.